The Completed Painting

The painting of Ava at the Rock of Cashel in Ireland is finished. This painting's quiet moment is a rarity in Ava's life.

Ava is now three years old and has recently moved to Sydney, Australia. While she still declares herself "a Boston girl," her Boston accent is turning to an Aussie one. No more talk about "boids or Hahvid." Her Australian grandmother writes that Ava "has grown in height and language skills, gathering enormous speed and can gallop with the pony tail flying out the back."

When I last spoke with Ava on Skype, she was wearing her pink and white polka-dotted bathing suit and jumping up and down on the bed while we talked. She was a pink and white polka-dotted blur. This is what life is like when you're three.

Thoughts on Composition

My current work in progress is a painting of Ava at the Rock of Cashel in Ireland. As seen here, the painting is about 90% finished. Even as I compare the original image with the painting, I'm pulled in about ten different directions thinking about how I'm going to finesse this. "Wait, her cheek is too rosy and the top of her head too pointy. Oh no! I need to put more tinted raw umber in the background....and that shade of tealy blue in the rock can not possibly ever occur in nature." An artist's self-critique never ends and that's part of the creative process. But, I digress. This is, after all, supposed to be about composition and how this particular painting has evolved.

As soon as I saw this photo last summer, I knew I had to paint it. There's something so delicate about Ava's features here and the backward glance at the viewer, captivating. What is she pointing towards? Is she merely curious or concerned? I like a painting that leaves those answers to the imagination.

My first intent was to delete the outdoor furniture from the background, uncluttering the painting, so the eye is drawn more to the focal point, Ava's face. Luckily, what remained in the photo is compelling---an old stone grotto, a stone wall, and new grass pushing it's way up through fallen leaves from the past autumn.

I wish I could say that I immediately relied upon an ancient formula for composition, using the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Mean to determine the precise location of my focal point on the canvas. However, the truth of the matter is not so lofty. In fact, it was pretty haphazard.

First of all, I just happened to have a square 20x20 canvas already primed and a frame to go with it. Double bonus! As soon as I finished the sketch on that square canvas, there was no denying my mistake: it was a bad, bad composition. Ava's head teetered up in one corner of the canvas, and the background was so cramped, all you could really see was her figure.

In a case like this, it's better to cut your losses and go back to the beginning. Who wants to spend time and energy working on a painting doomed from the start by poor compositon? So, I chose a rectangular linen canvas 22x28 and started over again. This time I roughly divided the canvas into thirds horizontally and into thirds vertically, placing Ava's face approximately in the sweet spot, the Golden Mean. Well, okay, it's off by an inch because I had to look at the overall composition and not place her body too far to the side of the painting. Still, her face is roughly 1/3 from the top of the canvas and 1/3 from the right side of the canvas. Close enough and I like it.